Can Spirits Control Animals?

      Every now and then I'll hear a story about how either a bird or butterfly, or a group of butterflies, is accepted as a sign that a deceased loved one is around.  The bird may suddenly appear on one's window sill at a regular time every day and exhibit unusual behavior or the butterflies may swarm on a regular basis.  

     If such stories are supposed to suggest that the deceased loved one has returned in a lower life form, I am highly skeptical and I don't know why such stories would offer comfort to the bereaved.   If, however, the stories suggest that animal life can be influenced and directed by discarnate humans, I am much less skeptical. 

      Consider the case of the Elberfeld horses, which I wrote about for the current (March/April) issue of Atlantis Rising magazine.  The closed-minded person will immediately dismiss the whole story as laughable, but the open-minded person will consider the testimony of a number of distinguished scientists and scholars and recognize that there may very well be something to it.

      In 1900, Wilhelm von Osten of Elberfeld (then Central Prussia) is said to have taught his Russian stallion, Hans, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.   The horse would strike out an answer to a problem by striking his hoof so many times.  For example, for 35, Hans would strike his left front hoof three times and his right front hoof five times.

      Professor Edoward Claparede of the University of Geneva studied the horse and called the phenomenon "the most sensational event that has happened in the psychological world."   Of course, mainstream science could not accept such a verdict and sent Oskar Pfungst of the Berlin psychological laboratory to rescue science. Pfungst reported that the horse merely obeyed visual clues, whether conscious or unconscious, given by von Osten.  This became known as the "Clever Hans effect," a term still used by animal trainers today. 

       Von Osten was humiliated and apparently refused to give further demonstrations.  However, when he died, he left Han to a friend, Karl Krall, a wealthy merchant, who had seen enough of the horse's ability to discount the Clever Hans effect.   Krall also bought two Arabian stallions, Muhamed and Zarif and began training them in the same manner von Osten had taught Hans.  Within three weeks, Muhamad was doing multiplication and division and within four months he knew how to extract square roots, cubic roots, and even fourth-power roots.   Zarif was a little slower, but eventually could do most of what Muhamad could do, while Hans went to the back of the class.    Krall also taught the horses how to read and write.  They would communicate by tapping a hoof one time for each letter of the alphabet, e.g., five strikes for E.   

       Hearing of these horses, Maurice Maeterlinck, a world-renowned Belgian author and Nobel Prize-winner in literature, decided to investigate.  At the first demonstration, he was astounded and commented that he was rather disturbed, as such abilities were in total opposition to his worldview. 

      When Krall took a trip to town, Maeterlinck was permitted to test the horses on his own.  Maeterlinck gave them some problems of which he did not know the answer - a way of ruling out the Clever Hans effect as well as mental telepathy, another theory that had been advanced, as fantastic as a mind-horse might seem.   It was only after he received the answer from one or the other horse that he did his calculations to determine if the answer was correct.

      In one test, Maeterlinck asked for the square root of a number, not realizing it was a surd - a number which had no square root.  Muhamed lifted his foot, paused, and then shook his head.

      Maeterlinck reported on tests run by Dr. H. Hamel while Krall was on a trip.  Hamel asked Muhamed for the fourth power root of 7,890,481, which Hamel himself did not know until checking Muhamed's correct answer of 53.  It took the horse about six seconds to begin striking out the answer.

       But the horses were sometimes wrong.  Professor Claparede asked Muhamed for the fourth power root of 614,656 and received the correct answer of 28, but when he wrote the number 4,879,681 on the blackboard in front of the horse, Muhamed tapped out 117.  When told he was wrong, he tapped out 144, also wrong.  The horse then gave up.

      A New York Times article dated March 3, 1912, told how Zarif was asked for the date by the reporter and tapped out 25 for February 25.  When asked how many days left in the month, Zarif tapped out 29.  It was a leap year.  When asked how often leap years occur, the horse tapped out "every four years."

       Maeterlinck, Claparede, and Hamel were not the only researchers to study the horses.  At least eight other respected academicians observed the horses and apparently were satisfied that it was not fraud or the Clever Hans effect.  Yet, modern references all seem to accept the Clever Hans effect as the only explanation. 

       Maeterlinck theorized that the horses had mediumistic ability and were able to tap into some kind of cosmic soul.   Even though Maeterlinck believed in mediumship, he did not believe that spirits could communicate through mediums. The cosmic soul theory, first advanced by Harvard's William James seemed more fantastic than the possibility that a mischievous spirit or spirits were having some fun by influencing or controlling the horses.  

       In effect, seven possibilities were recognized:

• 1. Outright fraud: Considering the fact that the horses performed regularly in the absence of the trainers, this appears to have been ruled out.
• 2. Fabricated Story: It seems highly unlikely that a man of Maerterlinck's reputation would make up such a story, especially when so many other respected scientists, scholars, and journalists all observed the horses and also reported on it.
• 3. Clever Hans effect: Here again, the horses performed when no trainer was around and when the researchers themselves did not know the answers.
• 4. Telepathy: Since the horses gave correct answers when the researchers themselves did not know the answers, this theory seems to have been ruled out.
• 5. Cosmic Soul: This theory can't be disproved, but it seems to be the most far-fetched of all.
• 6. Spirit Control: As one historian on spirit phenomena suggested, if spirits can levitate tables and humans, then there was no reason to believe they couldn't control the horses.
• 7. True Intelligence: Horses and perhaps other animals are really much smarter than we realize. If they can figure fourth-power roots in a matter of seconds, they may even be more intelligent than humans.

            Based on all the facts available, number 6 is the only one that begins to make sense to me, even though I struggle with it.   But if dicarnates can actually control horses, then why not birds and butteflies?

For a more detailed report on the Elberfeld horses, see my article in the current issue of Atlantis Rising. See http://www.atlantisrising.com/index.shtml